John Bellairs: Difference between revisions

* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: Uncle Jonathan's ''raison d'etre'', particularly when it comes to magic. Exhibit A: the strange and silly way he chases the reflection of the moon around the backyard before eclipsing it. Exhibit B: His time-travel magic that allows for a fake re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo, where you can pick a different side to win each time, watching the losing general die...and it's [[Played for Laughs]]. Exhibit C: His wild and [[Zany Scheme]] to find the clock by having Lewis create the weirdest set of instructions he can come up with--''and it works''. This last, at least, is explained by noting that Jonathan's magic works on chaos, the [[Order Versus Chaos|antithesis]] of Isaac and Selenna Izzard's orderly magic.

* [[Religion of Evil]]:

* [[Scary Shiny Glasses]]: The undead Selenna Izzard in ''The House with a Clock in Its Walls'' has exactly this sort of glasses, which even shine with ghostly radiance during a chase scene. After her destruction, all that is left of her is her skull and her glasses.

* [[Small Reference Pools]]: Inverted and taken [[Up to Eleven]] , there's the magic and salt Pillars, Roman Emperors besides Caesar, Nero, Caligula, and Claudius (taken from "[[Small Reference Pools]]") with Hadrian, Otho, Vitellus, and Trajan, this same brother was a huge fan of General Nicholas Herkimer, Halley's Comet, Heraldry on Ancient Shields in France, Hamlet and that's just from a whopping TWO books in the Johnny Dixon series. The subtrope [[Britain Is Only London]] is averted heavily even when important actions take place in Britain, London is mentioned only as the place where the characters travel through. Glastonbury -- Yes, Bristol -- Yes, Isle of Lundy --- Definitely. London is mentioned in the works with Bellairs' characters as much as several other places in England. And once it was two stations on London Underground. {{spoiler|and yes it was important to the plot.}} Another time was in relation to Sherlock Holmes.